What my old church was like, Part 2

Here I will tell you about our leader and his lieutenants. Our leader claimed to be a seminary graduate with over 125 post-bachelor degree units in philosophy. He said that he used to be a pastor of a denominational church until "the Lord spole to him and showed him through the reading of the Scriptures that denominationalism was wrong." He said that the Lord also showed him the “errors” of many churches, such as having a paid clergy, making financial needs known publicly, instrumental music during worship services, and having printed programs for worship services. He said that because the Bible taught the priesthood of all believers, there should be a plurality of elders and of preaching instead of having a pastor as both head of a church and its sole preacher. He said that because of these things, the Lord led him to “start a new work, in order to recover the New Testament pattern for the Church.”

Accordingly, in each church he founded, there were a number of men who were recognized as “elders” or “leading brothers.” Also, all the men in each church were strongly pressured to come to each meeting “ready and exercised with a word to share with God’s people.” Those who were active in preaching and teaching and who aspired to increased leadership roles were commended as “being serious for the Lord,” and were looked on favorably as candidates for positions as “elders” and “leading brothers.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Bible study is a good thing, and being able to intelligently teach the Bible is good. But the way these things were worked out in our group was actually pernicious. For not only was it taught that we should all be “serious for the Lord,” but it was also taught by word and by attitudes that those who didn’t put themselves forward, who weren’t ambitious, who weren’t always trying to start or lead or initiate or preach were somehow less spiritual than those who were. This resulted in tremendous pressure to perform, with the further result that many of us became intensely competitive, constantly trying to best each other in order to gain some coveted position of leadership.

The man who founded these churches also founded “training homes” where “serious” young men and women could be “trained for the work of the Lord.” These homes were usually run by a married couple who assigned chores to the young unmarried men and/or women who lived in the homes, and who assigned “consequences” to those who did not perform their chores to the standard set by the married couple. They also charged money for “living expenses”. Several of these married couples were also leaders in the various churches started by the head honcho, and they acted as his lieutenants. These training homes were billed as a way to “grow in stature and maturity”, but they actually kept many people in an infantile state, since the married couples who ran the homes got to decide how much free time you had, what you did with your free time, whether or not you could date, whom you could date, what you could eat, etc. As I said before, this group was very active in recruiting college students. When these students were persuaded to move into the "training homes", that was frequently the end of their college careers, since they no longer had adequate time to devote to their studies. As time progressed, however, the leaders of the group became more accommodating to college students, realizing that people with degrees would earn more, and would hence be able to give more money to the group.

The head honcho taught that elders and leading brothers should be selected according to the requirements of 1 Timothy 3 concerning elders and deacons. In actuality, while he asked sometimes for input regarding candidates for leadership positions, he always made the final decision. And he made his decision, not on the basis of the character of the candidate, but on the basis of the candidate’s loyalty or usefulness to him. Thus, for instance, there were many who were selected because their families had a lot of money! There was also a lot of nepotism practiced in selecting leaders and people for favored positions, both with the head honcho and with his lieutenants. Through his lieutenants, the founder exercised great control over every church he founded. Thus it was that the head honcho selected his sons to be “elders”, even though one of them turned out to be a wife-beater.

Regarding finances, as I said before, financial accountability was frowned upon in this group. We were encouraged every week to put our money into “the box at the back of the room”, but no one of the rank and file was ever told exactly where the money went from week to week. Instead, we would occasionally be presented with video shows where a piece of land or a new SUV was bought “for the Lord’s servants” in a Third World country. The leaders boasted that they did not make their needs known publicly like so many other ministries, but that they “trusted the Lord to take care of all their needs.” In reality, there was plenty of subtle pressure exerted behind the scenes to get money from people. If it was discovered that a man or woman had money, they were zealously courted as a “key asset to the Work” and were promised a leadership position of some sort.

My purpose in telling these things has been to show why I called this group aberrant. There are many other things I could write about this group. And I haven’t even begun to tell about my experiences while in the group. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t fun. But I will move on to what it was like to leave the group and to come out into the larger world of Christendom. More on that in my next post…